Vivid Creek Discussion

1 day ago

Been super busy lately so sorry for the late replies!

@Limo: Thanks for the upvote! I'll be sure to take a look at your deck!

@MooneBoyIrish: If you had read the deck description I've put the relevant ruling for auras there as many get confused by them; basically auras only target when cast so if they are put into play as part of an effect (ie. Zur,
Replenish
,
Open the Vaults
, etc) they can be attached to a legal permanent of your choosing (as defined by the enchant ability) without targeting that permanent. As MtgMaster02 pointed out
Triclopean Sight
is indeed both backup to
Daybreak Coronet
as well as an effective means to get
Stasis
up and running.

@SlowMoon17: I'd say both yes and no. I've slightly drifted away from the straight 1v1 environment to make it more resilient and able to at least hold its own in multiplayer as well (due to the local meta). I feel like there are faster ways of combo winning (
Doomsday
,
Phyrexian Unlife
, etc) but that's just boring. There's something about playing land destruction/
Stasis
and seeing the light drain from your oppenents' eyes that just makes it oh so worth it haha.

@Im_ygy: Yea... lol. I just looked it up and the entire decklist non-foiled, without
Timetwister
and OG duals is still around $2100 NM/PL

@Dankey Thank you! I like running
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
for the
Brainstorm
effect (and
Unsummon
effect if needed) to filter away any enchantments that find thier way into my hand (so i can tutor them up for free). In 1v1 Jace basically lets me know what my opponent is drawing most of the time too; so for now I think he is just too versatile to get rid of.

@cango35: I really like
Winding Canyons
in most creature based decks but i think it'd be kind of a waste here for a few reasons. Firstly I overall barely have any creatures. Secondly the additional 2 mana is killer... it'd mean i'd need 6 mana PLUS the land to get it off and that's just not worth the luxury of flash in my opinion. Thanks for the suggestion though!

3 months ago

Card Categorization

The following analysis is based on that categorization. Several cards are in more than one category, so I've categorized them based on their primary or common case. E.g.
Ancient Animus
is both "Removal" and "+1/+1 Counter Interaction", but you're going to cast it to kill something -- the +1/+1 counter is a nice bonus.

Strategy

There's no explicit or stated goals of the deck, so I can't evaluate the cards against that. If you have a goal, let me know.

The core effect of Animar is to play creatures, which grows Animar. As Animar grows, he helps you play more (and more expensive) creatures. Some notable limitations:

Animar only decreases colorless costs

Animar only cares about creatures

Animar only cares about casting creatures

Animar is cheap to cast and protects himself from most removal (due to his protection from Black and White). Because of this, we can assume that we will get him out early and keep him out long enough for him to provide benefit. We'll build the deck assuming Animar is on the battlefield at all times.

Since Animar reduces the colorless component of creature costs, we'll get the biggest benefit from colorless creatures. As with any unlimited cost reduction effect, we should look for ways to break the free case. The obvious one here is to bounce and recast colorless creatures for free.

Since we're playing all of these (hopefully free) creatures, Animar will grow quickly. Giving Animar good evasion will give us to win on commander damage quickly.

To best abuse Animar, we want:

Many creatures across a range of mid to high colorless costs

As many of those creatures in our hand as possible

An many +1/+1 counters on Animar as soon as possible

A means to make Animar unblockable

The easiest way to break Animar is to create an engine that casts colorless creatures and bounces them to your hand as many times as possible during a turn. We'll want ETB/LTB effects on those creatures and cards that care about creatures entering and leaving the battlefield. Additionally, we'll want cards that care about +1/+1 counters on a creature.

Favor creatures over non-creatures, as you get a discount on creatures. Try to keep colored costs to a minimum - avoid double or more colors in a cost.

Changes to the Existing Cards

I would consider cutting way down on the amount of ramp. Mana dorks get the deck running early, but they don't have any synergy with the core effects. I suspect that's what was leaving you feeling like you had a dead hand.

Cards that seem particularly problematic:

Wild Cantor
. Requires a sac for effect. Doesn't get cost reduction. A dork that taps for mana would be better.

Green Sun's Zenith
. I think a cheaper card that tutored to hand and then let you cast the card would be better, as you'd get the cost reduction effect and other synergies. No cards come to mind, but there are lots that look at the top X cards and tutor to hand (
Gift of the Gargantuan
, etc.).

4 months ago

You've evenly split your mana base throughout all 4 colors even though white and blue make up about 75% of your deck. Add more white and blue lands, like Nimbus Maze. Consider Vivid Meadow, Vivid Creek, Vivid Marsh, and Vivid Grove. Those cards are usually poor choices, but in an Atraxa deck, I find they excel

Vivid Creek occurrence in decks from the last year

Commander / EDH:

All decks: 0.05%

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